Buying gasoline

[Shroomer]

When choosing a gas station, consider those that have a "Top Tier" rating. There is a significant difference in the gasoline additives present. Check out Home | Top Tier Gas
or search for top tier gas and read up on it.

[Quantum]

Originally Posted by Ottawasteve

These pre-charges are particularly brutal for us poor Canadians. Got burned by this when it first came in years ago on our trip down to Florida from Canada. It really sucked for Canadians because we got dinged with the banks skim on each transaction.

Pre-charged the $100 US which with the bank's skim worked out to $120 CAN. If gas only turned out to be $90 US, then the entire $100 US would be refunded which showed up as $108 CAN on Credit card because of bank fees and then $90 US would be charged to Credit Card and bank/visa would again charge their commission. The 1-2% visa charged was worth it to not have to carry that amount of cash to fill 35 gallons 1 to 3 times per day. But when these fees were charged 3X for every fill-up it was a little excessive. Was really frustrating particularly in the central states, I would offer to let the gas attendant hold $200 US cash as security while I filled up and if my Credit Card did not work, they had cash in hand, but they refused to do this because they had to pre-authorize for Credit Card transactions.

Now have a $US visas for travelling and filling with gas.

We travel in the States often, heck I buy gas there every week since I live 10 minutes from the border.

This NEVER happens to me. They put a HOLD on my card for $100, when the transaction is complete, they process what I actually pumped. The hold is then removed. The HOLD does not go through as a transaction.

Plus with pay at the pump, I don't see how that would happen anymore anyway.

I use CC for everything, why not, they give free rewards!! I have never paid an interest payment on a CC in my life. I just reap in the great rewards. We don't buy stuff we don't need, so its easy to control our spending.

[Camper_bob]

We use a CC with travel rewards. So the couple times a year we have to use a hotel (YUCK!!) it's usually paid for. We can even get some RV resorts paid for with those rewards. We use it for virtually everything, and we pay it off every month so we don't pay interest.

We were surprised last Fall when traveling by two things: 1) to find a Flying J that had a nice, wide RV lane with a pump on either side. 2) the $200 hold they put on our card to use that lane. We didn't worry about it since it's a "high limit" card and we're never anywhere close, but it was still a bit annoying. Especially for a card that authorizes immediately; no reason for a "hold".

We shook our heads and said "well, at least it was a nice place to fill up!" Of course, the hold was removed shortly after.